AAPL: Payment Plans Helping iPhone in India, Opines Raymond James

By Tiernan Ray

Raymond James‘s Tavis McCourt this afternoon offers some data points on Apple‘s (AAPL) sales in India, citing an article today by The Economic Times’s Akanksha Prasad and Indu Nandakumar, which in turn cites data from market research firm IDC, showing that sales of the iPhone rose 300% to 400% in the last three months.

With Apple having had very limited success in India thus far, McCourt opines the company may be seeing some results from pursuing novel payment plans for the iPhone in that country:

Apple is ramping up its focus on the Indian market where smartphone penetration remains very low at less than 10% vs. more than 50% in developed countries. Apple is teaming up with local distributors and resellers to finance advertising and marketing campaigns while also introducing payment plans designed to make its expensive iPhone appeal to a broader swath of Indian consumers. Effectively, Apple is supporting partners to create payment plans for the iPhone, similar to what it has done recently in China. The success of this approach is still to be determined, but it’s classic Apple to find a new and different way to attract new customers without lowering price.

McCourt maintains an Outperform rating on Apple shares and a $600 price target.

India could use fewer smartphones and more toilets from my personal experience.

FEBRUARY 8, 2013 11:46 P.M.

jimmy wrote:

Indians don't see any value addition from apple on a practical front. The rich will buy it, the common will buy Samsung, Nokia or micromax, which serves most of the purposes that a iPhone does, at one third of the cost.

FEBRUARY 9, 2013 9:25 A.M.

jordy wrote:

okay people, let's take a good look at pete here, this is how apple stock was brought down. Lies! simple LIES and easy to check: apples real R&D (copied from morningstar) 2008 - 2012
Research and development 1,109 1,333 1,782 2,429 3,381

FEBRUARY 9, 2013 4:55 P.M.

Jack Baker wrote:

Jordy,

Pete's numbers are quarterly and I believe he is making a bullish argument. The first rule in winning an argument is to first know whether you're in one.

FEBRUARY 10, 2013 3:16 P.M.

BubbleBurst wrote:

Apple is desperate to keep the sales growth high even if it means "financing" your own sales. Many companies do it and it's not new, and you only really get in trouble when your customer's don't pay. I'm sure extending credit to emerging market consumers is a good plan.

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.